Bluemarlin

Motoring reviewers have long had a love affair with BMWs, and neither cosmetics nor comparitive reliability seem to dent that.

I don't have much of an issue with dress codes, although identifying who's who takes some getting used to, as often I find that the most senior/successful guy in the room is the one in jeans and t shirt. Workwise, I think the biggest change I've seen is that when I left school, the route to success was generally considered to be the professions, such as medicine, law and accounting. Whllst still true to some extent today, at least for now, the tech industry has appeared and grown from being the geeks who were hidden away, to the ones who call the shots. I think we're lucky though, not only in seeing such a substantial amount of change and progress in our lifetimes, but in being too old to be negatively affected by the even bigger changes on the horizon. There's no doubt that the growth in AI and quantum computing has the potential to change the world for good in the longer term, but the speed at which it's moving is likely to cause a significant amount of social upheaval in the short term.

The national grid seem confident that they have more than enough capacity: https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/electric-vehicles-myths-misconceptions As for solar panels, then yes, China makes around 80% of them but as I undertand it they have to import much of their high grade quartz, and the largest deposits are mostly in the US. What would be cool is if/when solar panel tech gets to the stage that it's viable to have solar panels on car roofs.

But would you have the strength to push the 2p in when the call was answered? 🙂

Unfortunately, at least in my experience, third party insurance is no cheaper than fully comp. I'll take a stab at guessing some of the reasons. The demand for third party insurance is probably greater amongs those who carry a greater risk, and stuggle to get affordable fully comp insurance. As such, the risk element might outweigh the lesser amount of things covered. Additionally, it's possible that those seeking third party cover have lower value cars, and so are less concerned about their own repair costs than they are for the unknown costs of third party damage. Given lower value cars, and therefore lower write off costs, the benefit to insurance companies might be marginal. Those would seem plausible reasons to me, although I'm sure there are others.

Ultimately AI will provide a solution for such things, as it more and more removes the human element, so that kind of thing could possibly work. What I don't understand though is how insurance costs manage to spiral so much. Either it's reflective of a genuine increase in costs, or the market is somehow inefficient. Regarding the latter, actuaries aren't much different to bookmakers, as both calculate odds/probabilities, and yet betting markets are incredibly efficient. Perhaps there's some price gouging as the product is compulsory. With EVs it's also possible that, with them being relatively new, there's insuffucient volume and data to provide accurate calculations Currently a single EV claim today represents a higher percentage of the volume than it will in 5 years, making them seem a bigger risk, and so a small number of claims might skew the numbers. One can only hope it balances out over time. It's also possible that all the additional safety features might reduce the number of accident claims sufficiently to offset the potentially higher claim costs.

There was a petition a few years ago that said as car insurance is compulsory, it should be nationalised and run as not for profit. I'm not sure how viable, or even desirable that would be, but I agree that if goverrnents want people to transition to EVs, they need to step in to remove some of the obstacles. Perhaps instead of using the stick approach of penalising people who drive undesirable cars, they might try a carrot, such as green credits, or vouchers, that could be used to offset things like insurance costs.

I'm not sure what else to say Linas. I'll start by saying that of course we have proof of both the climate, its changes, and the extent and frequency of extreme weather events and catastrophes that happened thousands of years ago. No one needed to be there to see them, or write them down, we have things like geological evidence and ice core samples that can tell us such things. So we don't need to go forward, as we can go back and see what happened in the past. Nor do we need to go forward to understand the cause, as we can predict the effect of warming and how it alters weather patterns and causes things like floods, droughts and heatwaves. Whilst I accept that little in life can be predicted with absolute certainly, the expertise and technology we have today means things are a lot more sophisticated than the guesswork and supposition you suggest. Essentially though, I've given the perspective of those who say that human emissions are having a significant impact on climate change, which increases the frequency and magnitude of natural disasters/catasptrophes. I've also provided links to numerous scientific papers and studies that support this view, based on all the available evidence. In addition, the scientific, political, industrial and business communities have spent many millions looking over all this evidence, and have reached a consensus that the conclusions are both real, and that actions we take to reduce our carbon emissions will have a sufficiently meaningful effect to warrant taking them. In turn, you've said that they're all wrong, based on your own interpretation of a few cherry picked data points which, without detail or supporting scientific analysis, are at best impossible to assess, or at worst refutable once viewed against the wider context and counter arguments. So, on the one hand I can accept the conclusions of all of these experts who, having spent many years and many pounds, and with a variety of opposing vested interests, have agreed are valid. Or, on the other hand, I can accept your supposition that they've all somehow missed things, made false claims and inaccurate assumptions, and have all practised bad science, because what little of the data you've read has led you to different conclusions, and to feel that they're wrong. Given the time and inclination, I suspect I could dig up the detailed arguments that counter those claims and suppositions but, as inteteresting as the debate is, I have neither. In any event, I imagine it will become a game of whack a mole, as with each point countered, another will be put forth. So I'll leave it there, with me believing the consensus, and you believing what you feel, and us agreeing to disagree. The best of luck to you Linas 🙂

And also that it's the thieving scum who are the root of the problem.

It was probably my fault for not being clear, but I didn't mean that the 2C wasn't important, just that I disagree with your overall premise that there's no point doing anything because temperatures will eventually rise anyway, whatever we do. As I've stated, the issue is not just about the economic and environmental impact of those changes, but the timing of them and, in that regard, any slowing down saves lives and money. As I said before though, there's no definitive answer as to the cost of either approach. I will also concede that the targets might be unrealistic. My main gripe is that it's a logically inconsistent argumement, that I suspect you wouldn't apply to other areas of your life. For example, your car engine will die one day, whether you change your oil or not, so why spend money changing it? The answer is that we think it's cheaper and less damaging in the long run, and that's the belief here too, regardless of the short term cost. I'll highlight the importance of timing, along with why more recent baselines have relevance, with a quote from one of the articles I linked: "All major climate changes, including natural ones, are disruptive. Past climate changes led to extinction of many species, population migrations, and pronounced changes in the land surface and ocean circulation. The speed of the current climate change is faster than most of the past events, making it more difficult for human societies and the natural world to adapt...Recent estimates of the increase in global average temperature since the end of the last ice age are 4 to 5 °C. That change occurred over a period of about 7,000 years, starting 18,000 years ago. CO 2 has risen more than 40% in just the past 200 years, much of this since the 1970s, contributing to human alteration of the planet’s energy budget that has so far warmed Earth by about 1 °C. If the rise in CO2 continues unchecked, warming of the same magnitude as the increase out of the ice age can be expected by the end of this century or soon after. This speed of warming is more than ten times that at the end of an ice age, the fastest known natural sustained change on a global scale." I would also disagree with your claim that most climate policy focuses on private cars. As I pointed out, industries have massively reduced emissions, and we already generate more than 60% of our energy from nuclear and renewables. However this doesn't rile people up so much, and so the media focus on cars. I classify catastrophes as flooding, hurricanes, drought, heatwaves etc, all of which cost lives and money, and all of which are increasing in recent years. I believe the detail in some of the links illustrated this but, if not, here's another article from the WMO, that states: “The number of weather, climate and water extremes are increasing and will become more frequent and severe in many parts of the world as a result of climate change,” says WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas." https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/weather-related-disasters-increase-over-past-50-years-causing-more-damage-fewer In conclusion, I agree that the climate changes regardless of what we do, and that what we're doing only makes it faster. The point I'm making, along with that made by the scientific community in the links I provided, is that the speed of those changes matters as much, if not more than the extent or existence of them. It's like saying that if a car is coming at you at 20mph, you have time to get out of the way, and mitigate any harm, but if it's doing 80mph you're going to sustain more damage. You wouldn't tell the driver to keep his foot on the gas, just because he's going to get here anyway. I could understand if you simply didn't believe in climate change, or that human activity is the main cause of accelerating it, but you concede those in your first sentence. As such, I'm struggling to see how you don't appreciate that the speed of it is what matters most, as that's pretty much the entire reason for why it's an issue to handle.

I suppose I can boil it down to agreeing that educaation alone can't fix the wider social problems, and that addressing the social problem won't solely fix education. They're both intrinsically linked, and so need to be tackled together.

Fair questions Linas, and so I'll try to answer them. Regarding scientfic research on climate change and catastrophes, that falls into three parts. One is the question of whether climate change is happening, another is whether such changes cause catastrophes, and the third is to what extent human activity, in particular CO2 emissions, is responsible for that. To answer your question, there's a mountain of scientific research that covers all of these areas, and so it's not my opinion or interpretation. In fact there's way too much to list individually, so here's a link that summarises of some it, provided by NASA. https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/ Here's another paper from the Royal Society, that also links to further reading and scientific research: https://royalsociety.org/~/media/royal_society_content/policy/projects/climate-evidence-causes/climate-change-evidence-causes.pdf It would seem though, that the main area of difference that we have, is to what (if any) extent we can reduce the amount of human emissions to a point where it's felt it can mitigate these climate changes, or whether it won't make any difference at all. Coupled with your belief that CO2 levels, and climate change, are natural processes that we can affect neither positively or negatively. Nor am I not understanding your references to a 2C target, and just disagree with the level of importance you place on it. So yes, I agree that climate change happens naturally, and also that humans are accelerating it. Regarding the latter though, we are causing it if our actions result in it occuring now, at a time when it wouldn't have otherwise occured. To ignore that is like saying that the sun will explode in 250 million years and destroy the planet, and so nuclear armageddon won't cause the death of the planet, and will just accelerate it. To further utilise your timing argument, one could equally apply that logic and say that one day fossil fuels will run out, so it makes no difference if we stop using them now, or some time in the future, as it will happen anyway, no matter what we do. What I'm therefore saying is that timing and timescales are fundamentally important; and our ability to slow down, if not eliminate such things, has an enormous impact on our ability to mitigate, adapt and pay for them. It would be nice therefore if you could reciprocate, and provide some reputable scientific sources that support your mathemaatical theories and conclusions that whatever we do makes no difference. I also take issue with the lack of importance you place on temperature rises, when you say things like we would just be a bit warmer if temperatures rose by 6C. Yes, we would, but the indirect effects are enormous. Other parts of the world would disappear under rising sea levels, or become too hot to live in. Additionally, under the right conditions we, along with other mammals, cant last for more than a few hours in temperatures around the high 30sC. The fact we do so when exposed to such temperatures is only because we can dissipate heat through sweating. Alter humidity sufficiently, to the point that we can't lose that heat, and we die. That might not be much of a risk for the UK, but a much lower rise than 6C would push tropical regions well beyond that threshold, meaning that over 3 billion people would be migrating north and knocking on your door to share your air conditioning. That would most definitely affect your lifestyle. So, whilst you might place some importance on your individual claims, they only have merit when taken in isolation, which is subsequently lost when viewed in the wider context, as they fail to take into account the knock on effects of such things, which might not affect you or I directly, but the consquences of them certainly will. For practical purposes then (which is what matters), slowing down any changes and effects has an enormous impact on the costs of mitigating those changes, or adapting to them. The question then simply becomes, is it more cost effective in the long run to spend money on trying to reduce CO2 emissions, or to spend money on simply adapting to the changes in climate and fixing the additional damage it might cause. I will grant you that that's an open question, with no definitive answer, and so there are things to consider on both sides of the argument. Given that it's where we seem to mostly differ, I'll focus on those in favour of acting now. Firstly, we're well on the way to reducing the need for fosssil fuels and replacing them with cleaner, renewable sources of energy. Currently the UK generates around 60& of its energy from nuclear and renewables, without the sky falling in. Technology is moving at such a rate that it's quite possible, if not probable, that burning fossils fuels will soon become a more expensive way of generating energy. As I've stated before, the world is moving in that direction anyway. The do nothing ship has sailed, and the only one left in port is the reduce CO2 vessel. So, it's a case of get on board or be left behind on the dock. You'll note that none of these refer to climate change, or the effects on the environment, and so I agree with you on one point. That being that governments are failing by focusing their efforts on forcing people to change through penalties, and instead should be incentivising the alternatives and promoting the benefits, so that people can choose for themselves. That would solve both of the main perceived problems, which are reducing human emissions, and negating any public opposition to change. Much like the educatiom discussion, where I feel the issue is more social than financial, I see this as an economic issue as much, if not more than a scientific one. It just so happens that both the scientific argument, as well as the economic one, seems to be more and more leaning towards moving away from fossil fuels as a means of energy production.

I agree with you that it's grossly unfair that dumb kids are advantaged simply because they have the wealth to go to private schools, I just don't believe that taking that away from them will enable poorer kids to fare better. As I've said all along, I believe it's a social issue rather than a financial one. I don't just mean with regards to the issues I pointed out in my last post, I mean regarding the wider social issues of poverty in general, and bringing up the income levels of working people. If people were paid a fair amount for their work, that enabled them to comfortably provide for their families, then the problem would solve itself. Before people can begin to have aspirations of better careers and improved lifestyles, they need to have hope, if not a belief, that their efforts, no matter what their level, will be fairly rewarded. People will get better education if they want it, and to want it means they have to believe it's not only possible, but will make a difference. Pointing to the unfairness of dumb rich kids doesn't make that possible, and only gives people an excuse not to try. Eliminating that advantage might make the playing field seem more fair, but the aspirations and privilege of those better off will always be higher than those of the less well off, simply because it's what they're accustomed to. That won't change until you give others something to aspire to, the tools to achieve it, and a realisic expectation that it will be worth their while.

My apologies if I've misinterpreted what you said Linas. However, I don't see how having a private system makes things worse. If anything it at best provides a target for public education to aim for and aspire to, and at worst can be seen as an additional "tax" on those who can afford it. Perhaps then you could clarify how you think that the existence of private schools prevents the state from providing better public ones.

As I understand it, you were educated in a different country, and so the fact that you saw less well off families push their kids more may not be true here. There are a variety of cultural differences across nations, not least relating to the family, which is why I believe the problem is social rather than finanancial. I don't know the answer to our social problems, or even why some other countries/cultures don't face the same ones. Perhaps then it's worth looking at some things we do differently. Let's start with a simple one, like Germany, where in many places shops still don't open on a Sunday. This is at least in part because they feel it's more important to have some leisure time, spent with one's family, than it is to traipse around IKEA scoffing meatballs. Does this make a difference? Who knows, but it can't hurt when it comes to providing a stable family structure. Some countries still have at least some form of national service, whilst others have only given it up fairly recently compared to us. Does that make a difference? It certainly must help in terms of instilling a sense of pride, discipline, structure, purpose and responsibiliity into a young person's life, before they become a parent. Many countries/cultures seem to put far more emphasis on the value of the family than we do. In the UK Asian cultures are a good example, where children from such backgrounds consistently fare better academically, regardles of their location or economic status. There are probably many more examples of differences, which are all things worthy of researching, even if they only lead to being dismissed as making no meaningful difference. You also raise an important point about kids who come from incomplete families having the worst of it. That's true, as by virtually every meaningful metric, children from single parent households fare worse than those from two parent ones. At 21%, the UK is apparently the second highest country (behind the US) for single parent households. Given that the vast majority of prisoners, drug abusers, teen pregancies, youth suicides and runaway homeless children come from single parent families, how much does that add to our problems? Is it just the relatve poverty, or the additional parental burden that causes issues, or is it more than that? Most of these children are raised by their mothers, and with both the teaching and social services professions being predominantly female, it means that many children, especially from less fortunate backgrounds, have no positive male influence in their lives. How does that affect things, if at all? You say we should study things before acting when talking of climate change. You say don't ban cars without understanding if they're the problem, and yet would ban private education, without looking into all these other factors first. In many ways you're using the same argument to oppose private education that you accuse climate change promoters of, with even lesss evidence that it's to blame; which seems logically inconsistent. What I'm saying is that we apply the same degree of scientific rigour that we have to climate change because, for the UK at least, there are host of things to be researched and examined before we blindly leap to banning private schools, and that those things are largely social, and not financial. I grant you, the private school system provides no direct benefit to those who don't have access to it, but to do away with it means you need to demonstraate that it's the cause of the problem, and not simply a symptom, as it could just as easily be a cure to it for some.

Linas, you make a lot of assertions, but I've yet to see any of them backed up. As such, rather than going round in circles refuting them, I'll simply ask you if you have any peer reviewed scientific data that asserts we need to end humanity in order to prevent catastrophic climate change. Additionally, whether climate change will be simply worse or catastrophic, is not my interpretation of facts, it's the interpretation of the scientific, industrial, commercial and political community, and I'm just passing on the message, not authoring it. You also said "so if properly funded and prioritised I think we could get to the bottom of what's causing climate change, how bad it can actually be and what we can do about it." But that's precisely what we're doing. It's massively funded and researched, and we're finding new answers and solutions every day. So, with the exception of breathing, there's every reason to believe that we can eliminate our production of carbon, and are well on the way to doing so. Even China now produces less than half it's energy from fossil fuels, and is a maassive investor in solutions globally. Talking of breathing (ie natural emissions) and carbon capture, your thinking on that is flawed too. Here's a quote that summarises the matter: "Human beings do exhale almost three billion tons of carbon dioxide annually, but the carbon we exhale is the same carbon that was “inhaled” from the atmosphere by the plants we consume. (When we eat meat, we're still eating the same carbon, except that it passes through livestock on its way into our mouths and out into the atmosphere.) The only way to add to the carbon in the atmosphere is to take it from a sequestered source like fossil fuels—where it has been safe from the atmosphere for millions of years—and combust it. So breathe easy." In other words, our eating and breathing is part of a natural cycle that both produces and re-uses CO2, which is naturally captured as part of that cycle, and so is carbon neutral, if not sllightly negative. There are plenty of articles that explain it in more detail if you wish to Google it. You seem to focus on small areas, upon which you go on to make seemingly flawed assumptions, based on what seems like little more than your own thoughts and observations, which you admit might be wrong, and then claim that carries more weight than the evidence and conclusions that have come from billions in scientific research, over several decades. In this, and other posts, you seem oblivious to a multitude of other things that are going on. As such, rather than repeat myself, I'll try and summarise just a few of those things. None of this is guesswork or asumption on my part by the way, and mostly comes from New Scientist articles. Your often raised complaint that governments have focused solely on transport, specifically motorists, is simply untrue. Energy providers have been consistently reducing their carbon emissions, to such an extent that it was expected to peak in the summer of this year, and then start declining. Ironically this was delayed due to global warming causing droughts and heatwaves, which resulted in a significant reduction in hydropower in places like the USA and China. Regarding your wish that we spend more on researching solutions, here's one small example. Hydrogen is seen as a potential carbon free energy source. The problem is that to produce it economically currently requires burning a lot of fossil fuels, with the resultant CO2 emissions. However, scientists at a US university have recently discovered a way to produce hydrogen by burning household waste plastics. This not only produces no CO2, but actually results in graphene as a byproduct. Further, if the graphene is then sold at only 5% of its current market value, the hydrogen production becomes not only free, but in profit to the tune of about $4 a kilo. So, free hydrogen, a possible solution to plastic waste, and money in the bank. I guess we'll have to wait and see where that leads, but this is the kind of thing I was talking about when I said that being forced to think differently, and innovate our way out of a problem, might lead to benefits that far outweigh any downsides. There are plenty of other studies and initiatives taking place all over the world, which could deliver things we haven't yet dreamed of. I'll also pre-empt another of your favourite arguments, which is why should we bother, when the likes of China are still burning coal, as it seems both pointless and unfair; but that coveniently ignores the other side of the China coin. As well being the largest emitter of greehouse gases, it's also the world's largest supplier of clean energy technologies. Their own level of clean energy investment is unmatched, with more than half of all global wind and solar capacity set to be installed in China this year. They're also adding more nuclear and hydropower than anywhere else. So, whilst they continue to burn a lot of coal, fossil fuels now only account for less than half of their energy generation, with new coal plants built not to run at full capacity, but largely to remain as a short to medium term fallback. Not only has this enormous growth in green energy helped in mitigating China's emissions, it's also resulted in much cheaper technology for everyone else. China makes around 80% of the world's solar panels, as well as being the dominant suplier of wind turbine equipment. As a consequence it's now more cost effective in many countries to build new solar and wind installations than it is fossil fuel ones. In addition, China is investing billions in green energy in lower income countries. Finally, despite feeling forced into EVs here, China is seeing record adoption, with sales exceeding 20% of all new car sales last year. Sure, there are huge problems with China's current level of emissions, but they are at least in part due to its population size and the massive redevelopment taking place. So, whilst it predicts that it will be behind some other countries in becoming carbon neutral, it's almost single handedly responsible for providing the technology and equipment for other countries to do so. None of this suddenly makes China the good guys though, on the contrary. What is does mean is that, even if the fears of climate change are overblown, the world is moving in that direction. China may be the largest emitter of CO2, but it's already by far the largest producer of the technology to combat it. So yeah, we can sit back and do nothing, in the belief that what we're doing causes no harm, because we're just a small island, and dont want the incovenience. However, if we do that, then in a few decades we'll not only be technologically behind the rest of the world, but completely and utterly dependent on others to dig us out of it. Whatever your beliefs in the science, the case is overwhelmingly in favour of reducing the use of fossil fuels and CO2 emissions, and replacing them with cleaner and renewable forms of energy. Have a lovely Sunday 🙂

Once again you're referring to the pain of what's being done as "you're pain", and then add to this that you're only talking about the hurt you're suffering yourself, which is why I felt you were presenting a somewhat subjective viewpoint. No, it doesn't require human extinction, it just requires us not to burn things that cause climate change. As far as I know, wind, solar, hydrogen, and all manner of alternative energies will still allow us to live and enjoy all the things we still have, without adding to climate change. In your later post you talk about going to different locations to see how we'd cope in an enviroment that was 6C higher and, if we could cope, then a 6C rise in global temperature would be no problem for survival. If this your understanding of the effects of climate change, then I fear we're in different universes on the subject. To be clear, the concern about a 6C rise in global temperatures has nothing to do with the possibility that we might need a bit more sun lotion, or how we'd feel if we were a bit warmer. It's about the environmental effects that result in ice melting, rising sea levels, coastlines disappearing, productive land turning to desert, along with the dumping of fresh water into the oceans from melting ice that affects the stability of the gulf stream, and thus leads to increases in volatile weather patterns which cause catastrophoc damage. These are all things that are happening now. Going back to your pain at the costs. Do you have any idea how much it would cost to relocate the countless cities built on shorelines, or manage the mass migration of people from areas where it's no longer possible to produce food and live? That alone would bugger up the lifestyles of people far more than the cost of switching to an EV. So yeah, the ecomentalist might be ridiculous in saying that 0.5C more and the world ends, bit it's far less ridiculous than saying that a 6C rise will lead to nothing worse than us all living in Tenerife. I agree with you, and Stephen, that to some extent we're acting on theory based only on what we know so far, but what other option is there? We know that excess CO2 causes climate change. We know that our relatively small contribution to it results in the majority of that change. We can already see the expensive and damaging effects of that change in many parts of the world. And we can reliably predict that it will get exponentionally get worse over time. So, we're left with a bet. That being that we act to reduce our CO2 emissions to slow down, if not eliminate, the harm our own emisssions are causing; or we take a punt that the scientific conclusions are wrong. To me then, the logical choice is the former, as I see it as a kind of insurance, for which the evidence suggests that there's small chance that the expense might be unnecessary, against the far greater cost we would face if the conclusions are correct. Like most insurance, I don't like having to pay it, but it's the lesser of two evils.

Ok, I see where you're coming from. You're talking about theory, and I'm talking about what tends to happen in the real world, based on past experience and the one we live in. In theory, a system where everyone has equal access to the same quality of education is great, no argument from me. In practice I don't see how it would happen. That said, let's look at what I see as some of the flaws. How is your suggestion of selection based on academic merit any fairer? A bright kid, from an underprivileged background and uneducated parents, is quite likely to fall below the standard of an average one, whose parents provided some education at an early age; even though he might be smarter in the long run, with greater potential. So, whether it comes down to merit, wealth, location, or the child's aspirations, it ultimately lies with the parents. If the parents are insufficiently motivated, or incapable of preparing their kids to compete academically, then you're back to square one. Yes, the education system is broken, but I'd argue that it's a result of a broken social system and, unless that is fixed, no amount of tweaking the school system will change things very much.

Unintended consequences Linas. What I'm saying is that there's nothing to suggest that the state schools will be good, at least not in the geographic areas that it matters. Also, given that state schooling is location based, no social mobility would occur, as rich kids will go to schools in rich areas, and poor kids will go to schools in poor areas. Guesss which ones will be better.

You're right, we are jumping to actions in response to the available evidence we have, that's what we do. In fact, according to you, cars are the lesser evil, and so we are starting with a smaller jump, just as you suggest. No-one is saying we have to stop living. No-one is taking cars away without a replacement, and even the government recognises this will take more time than originally thought. Regardless of the the rights and wrongs, I think you're being just as alarmist as the ecomentalists when it comes to the potential outcomes of addressing these things. There's nothing scientific about saying "let's stop living now", when there's no evidence to suggest that will happen. You can disagree as much as you like, but there's plenty of evidence to support it. What's happening is little more than what the oil companies own scientists predicted 50 years ago. So it's wrong to assume that this is just the result of fanatics. However, I guess we'll never agree, other than agree to differ.

"Young women", if you want to be picky 🙂

As for education, I fully agree that it's an issue that needs to be resolved, but your opposition to private education seems to me like throwing the baby out with the bath water. As I mentioned earlier, I came from a not very well off background, but had the good fortune of parents of who made sacrifices to send me to a private school. As well as forcing a decent education into my somewhat rebellious self, I mixed not only with kids like myself, but also the children of wealthy, and even some famous parents. The latter gives one a sense of social mobility that's not so easily gifted to children herded together in schools of their own social class, and breaks barriers that are just as hard to cross as those created by academic achievement. To reach your full potential, and make the most of opportunities, you first need to know what those opportunities are. In later life I genuinely met people who had no idea that there were career oppotunities beyond blue collar type work, or that it would never be for them, simply because they were never exposed to such people. The idea of being a doctor, lawyer or accountant was alien to them, and something for people to be born into. Throughout my life this has worked both ways, and I've learned a lot from mixing with people outside my apparent social or demographic sphere, from either end of the spectrum. As a result, despite my somewhat humble beginnings, I have always been comfortable and treated equally in either the company of labourers or the CEOs of listed companies. I can summarise it best by saying that my educational environment gave me a confidence beyond my starting point, and an understanding that I'm neither better nor worse than anyone else, no matter who they are or where they came from. Doing away with private education won't remove privilege from the privileged, it will simply reposition it. State education is location based and, in the absence of private schools, the state schools will fill that gap in the wealthy residential areas, the parents will make sure of it. Those who can't afford to live in those areas will be left with the schools they've always had. So all it will achieve is wealthy parents being able to send their kids to pseudo state/private schools at the taxpayers expense, instead of their own. Far better to go the other way in my opinion, and widen the availability of private schools to those less forunate, through grants and scholarships. I'd even go so far as mandating that such schools had to take a minimum percentage of grant paid students. It won't help everyone, at least not in the short term, but it's a step in the right direction. I have no problem with equalising education opportunites, or or anything for that matter, and think it's a good thing but, whilst it's harder, and takes longer, I feel it's better to try and equalise upwards than downwards.

Isn't it though? You did start by saying how such things affected your lifestyle, but maybe I'm reading between the lines too much. That said, if the solution to climate change resulted in nothing more than removing the power the oil companies have held for so long, and replacing it with a cheaper alternative, that lowered your costs, and improved your lifestyle at best, or left you at break even at worst, would you be nitpicking the science so much? As for your points, if you want to be picky, a lot of science is inconclusive if you want a degree of 100% certainty, and so we have always had to act on the best available evidence. Gravity is only a theory, which we don't fully understand, and so base our actions on the visible effects. You wouldn't jump off a building just because the theoery is inconclusive. Also, whilst science suggests that heating and cooling happen naturally, without human intervention, that's not the point. What matters is whether human intervention accelerates that process to a damaging degree, and science claims that it does. Using the former as an excuse to do nothing is akin to saying that science has proven that we will die, no matter what we do, and so there's no point not smoking, wearing seatbelts or even making murder a crime.

Indeed, who cared about 15% mortgage rates when we had Prince Andrew taking on the Argentinians single handedly 🙂

I have similarly mused, Stephen. Not just about the Darwinian effect of sending the masses to war, but also the social effect. There's nothing like a war to aid in social cohesion and a sense of community.